Mamels life animal

Fat is back, baby !  After a pretty extensive smear campaign, fats are now recognized to be necessary for a healthy, balanced adult diet.  But for infants,   LL Cool J  said it best- “Don’t call it a comeback, I’ve been here for years!” Fats have always been an essential constituent in mother’s milk and in the last decade specific fatty acids have been added to commercial formula. The lion’s share of research effort in the topic of early nutrition has been dedicated to fatty acids and cognition . This is because fatty acids, made from phospholipids and triglycerides, are critical structural components of the brain. More to the Story: Phospholipids                       A recent pilot study conducted by colleagues in Japan suggests that formula fortified with a particular phospholipid may confer some benefits for infant neurodevelopment and function. Sphingomyelin is a phospholipid, and in rats, contributes to myelination of the brain. In our brains, neurons send “messages” to one ano

1-Year Anniversary of Mammals Suck! A year ago I was sitting in the lobby of a conference hotel thinking “There really needs to be a blog about milk. The evolutionary biologists, dairy scientists, nutritionists, lactation biologists, and clinicians are doing such AMAZING research that informs one another but we all go to different conferences. We should be talking to each other more, and ALL of us should be talking to the general public way more . Hmmmmm… who could do it? Someone who interacts with lots of different folks working with milk and whose natural tendency is to make jokes and use curse words so the sciency-science won't be too dry." Aw crap... Since then, in between teaching, grant-writing, conferencing, reviewing, editing, mentoring, monkey milking, manuscript-writing, analyzing, assaying, and a personal life , I've been able to occasionally post about milk! In the last year " Mammals Suck... Milk! " has received >30,000 hits from dozens of countri

Building Babies :  P rimate Development in Proximate and Ultimate Perspective Editors: Kate Clancy , Katie Hinde , & Julienne Rutherford Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects Springer, 531 pp. The table of contents, listing the AMAZING chapters and contributors, can be found here .